


Bittersweet

by MistressPaint



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Angst, Emotionally confused children, Language Lesson, M/M, Rambling, libraries woo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressPaint/pseuds/MistressPaint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feelings are already hard enough to deal with, let alone explain. And somehow you'd never imagined having to explain what an emotion means to someone whose general approach to life was to know as much as possible and then spend hours ranting about it. You're doomed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> Written at 2am to procrastinate on studying for finals after finishing rereading Fruits Basket and getting all the feels (it's been like 7 years since I last read it okay don't judge me)

You set the book down on the table – gently, for you – and lean back in your chair, tipping your head back. A sigh, barely there, escapes your lips, and you can’t help but cast a glance across the table to your companion. You squeeze your eyes shut at the predictable flood of emotions, made worse by your current state, and resist the urge to scream. He’s so deep in his own book that you probably could and he wouldn’t even notice it, but…

Frustrated but unable to put any of it into words, you bolt upright and stand abruptly, walking – all right, it was more like stomping, but you suddenly had too much jumbled up inside you and it had to go _somewhere_ – purposefully towards the end of the aisle. The two of you were tucked away in one of the quietest corners, and while normally you reveled in the isolation, now it was like a tiny glass bottle, suffocating you.

When you return a few minutes later, you feel a bit calmer, but the knot of tension buried deep inside you isn’t any closer to being unwound. You consider sitting for a moment, but can’t imagine it would help. Instead you starting pacing around the little area, absently raking one hand through your pale hair. What the hell were you doing? Sitting in a library on a Saturday morning with your best bro and reading silently. Bro would piss himself laughing and call you whipped if he could see, but truth is, hanging with Karkat has mellowed you out a lot from what you were all through your tenure in the public school system.

“Hey, asshole.” Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Nubby lil’ horns and all.

You force yourself out of your own head enough to respond. “Sup princess, did I disturb your beauty sleep?” Shit, that was weak. Obviously he picked up on it too, since you can practically hear him roll his eyes as he lets out a gusty, aggrieved sigh of his own as you turn to face him. “What the everliving fuck are you doing, Strider? Do you need to go ‘potty’ or something?” He actually uses air quotes around potty and dear god you love him so much for it, all that cultural movie swap bullshit has paid off if he can mock you with your own language’s slang.

But as soon as a tiny grin from that realization begins to creep its way onto your face the knot squeezes a little tighter. You wipe your face clean and consider a few options. You’d could lie, of course. You could cling onto the potty remark and annoy him till he gets distracted, but honestly… that’s not nearly as appealing now as it used to be, and often still is. You’re still weighing options when you realize you’ve been silent for too long.

Fuck it, truth it is. “Just feeling a little, er, antsy. Bittersweet, I guess. From finishing that book” you say lightly, trying to keep yourself from bouncing in place. Entirely true, a good excuse, and just skims the surface without actually delving into the real issue. Nicely done, Strider. You give yourself a mental high-five.

You expect Karkat to look unimpressed as always but instead his brows are furrowed. “What’s that mean?” he asks, and you’re a bit surprised. You’d thought you’d used that word before, but apparently not. “Oh, antsy? You know, like you’ve got to move-“ He cuts you off, making a vicious slashing motion with one clawed hand. “No, you braindead idiot – the other one. What was it?” He frowns. “Bitter and sweet? Aren’t those flavors? You’re reading a book, not eating.” He almost sounds annoyed with you, and you’d tease him if you weren’t distracted. He’s screwing up his face in that way that lets just the tips of his longest fangs poke out, dimpling the lip beneath them. You kind of want to lick them.

You shrug, feigning nonchalance. “Well, you know – bitter is well, bitter, like the emotion but yes also the taste, and sweet for… I don’t know, happiness? But at the same time.” His face broadcasts loud and clear that no, he doesn’t ‘know.’ You give one last valiant attempt at dodging the subject: “What, do trolls not try to mix up sensations? Must be a humans only thing, like a specialty of confusion and double meaning all wrapped up in a nice package and then deposited neatly into all five senses, 6 for some, and swirled up into a weird-ass slurry of feelings-“ Your just starting to gather steam when you’re rudely interrupted again. You fight the urge to pout.

He rolls his eyes and scowls at you. “No, your gustation-emotion hybrid things weren’t considered important enough to be part of standard schoolfeeding,” he hisses at you. You start to think you’ve gotten away – ignored cultural differences are usually enough to set him off on a good length rant – but then he continues, “…BUT, since it’s apparently relevant at this particular point in time, explain.” Shit, he’s looking at you so expectantly, the book is down – jesus, it’s even bookmarked, you’re doomed.

You sigh, resigning yourself to teaching duty. Might as well get it over with. “Well, I guess, start with the tastes. Bitter kind of makes you pinch up your face a bit, wish that it was over, or that there was something to balance it out. Sweet, er, makes you happy? Like it washes out the leftover bitterness and is just, well sweet – shit, this isn’t working.” You never were any good at explaining yourself. Too many thoughts all jumbled up in your head. Emotions were always even worse. You take a deep breath and drop down into your abandoned chair. You take a few moments to arrange your thoughts as you sink into the cushions before launching back in, your voice hesitant.

“Let’s start over. Bitter, as a feeling, is sort of… a mixture, I guess. A little bit of envy, some sadness, maybe a smidge of frustration, sometimes throw in some resignation. It clogs you up and, even though it doesn’t swamp you like some of its cousins, it’s a sneaky bastard. Likes to hang around for a long time just lurking behind everything else, ready to catch you unaware and ruin whatever’s going on.

Bittersweet, well, it’s bitter, but with something else opposite it mixed in. Happiness, maybe, or hope, or …love.” You hesitate, wondering whether you should keep going. This way lay dragons, you could feel it. One look at a riveted Karkat, however, and you’re talking again, anything to damp down your own ache.

“You can get it from a lot of different sources. Maybe you got a promotion, but you have to move away from the place you’ve been since graduation. Maybe at graduation, you’re glad to be moving on but sad that you’re leaving all this behind. Maybe you won a crazy game, but you lost friends in the process.” You lean forward, gesturing, as the words keep tumbling out “It’s the feeling you get when you come out of a good movie, or finish a great book, or finally releasing a project you’ve been slaving over. It’s that feeling of happiness, because you’ve seen it from start to finish and heard the whole story, but broken up by that emptiness you get now that your purpose, even if it was only your focus for a few hours, is gone, and now you have to move on.” You can’t seem to sit still, messing with your hair or wrapping your fingers around each other while shifting in your chair. “It’s bending over backwards and put in so much effort, only to discover you weren’t even needed. It’s sitting in the middle of a crowded party as the smile fades from your face and you wonder what the hell you’re doing with your life. It’s wondering where the bullshit ends and the truth begins, or even if that line still exists and you haven’t completely fucked yourself up by pretending to be something.” _Shut up shut up shut UP!_

You’ve been getting steadily louder. You know you should stop, but just can’t seem to do it.

“It’s seeing people finding their purpose and succeeding in life while wondering if you can ever do the same. It’s living vicariously through a character as they fall in love and somehow everything works out, then disconnecting and desperately wishing it was that simple. It’s getting so involved that when you’re suddenly just you again, with normal problems and no promise of a happy ending, you feel this gut wrenching emptiness and you wonder, ‘Why can’t it be me? Why can’t I be sure that I’ll get the job, or that they’ll love me back and that I won’t fuck up what we have, or that everything will be okay???’” Your voice is cracking and your eyes are pressed into your hands as you hunch into yourself. You can’t look at him. You’re too busy reeling and trying not to cry.

“At least, that’s what it means to me,” you mumble weakly, voice raw.

You’re so absorbed by your own self-loathing, prodding at that empty knot of bitterness in your own stomach, that you don’t realize it’s been quiet for a while. You also don’t realize that he stood up until he speaks, hot breath breezing across your hands where they’re clenched with a white knuckled grip on your face.

“So, that’s what that feeling is.” It’s the quietest you’ve ever heard him. He sounds almost – well, bittersweet, you suppose.

Sometime while you were rambling like a gerbil on cocaine, he’d moved in front of you. Now he was awkwardly hunched over, half crouching, in front of you to put his faces level with your own. You study his face, gut hollow and emotionally washed out. He looks, you don’t know. Sheepish, hesitant, morose, regretful, even hopeful? You’ve made an art out of stringing superfluous words together but now they’re failing you somehow.

It takes you another few moments to actually process what he said, your heart starting to thump painfully in the confines of your ribcage. Then a few more to combine it with his expressions, actions, tone, cross-reference the result in your extensive Karkat database – and boy do you have one, because you’ve known this fucker for _5 goddamn years at this point, ever since the first few months of integration halfway through high school when John forced you all to interact, you’d never thought it would go anywhere but damn if they didn’t become some of your best friends for life, and of those years and friends and everything that happened you spent half of one hating him, another half tolerating, and then a full year of taunting him before realizing that you were ass over teakettle for him and that nothing you could do would ever make it come true, leaving you to stew in your own bottled up feelings for another three years, years that could only be described as bittersweet to the fullest._

This time when you’re snapped out of your run-on sentence hell of an internal monologue – it tends to get that way when you’re stressed – it’s because he’s leaned across the 7 and a half inches between you to press his mouth to yours. Your brain shuts down completely.

* * *

When you finally pull away from each other your mind still hasn’t had a chance to reboot. Instead you just stare at him numbly as his whole face turns a bright cherry red. Funny – you’d known that blushes depended on blood color for trolls, but you’d never really imagined that his was neon enough that it would still be that visible, even under the thick gray hide of his kind. The thought is enough you break you out of your stupor. A tiny grin tugs at the corners of your mouth.

The longer you stared at him the redder he got, shifting around nervously, but now that he’s caught sight of your expression he looks more like a boiled crab with horns and messy hair than anything else, he’s so red everywhere. You snort a little at how silly he looks. Immediately he changes from shy to offended, fluffing up like an angry cat and yelling, “Shut up!” The entire situation is just so absurd that you have to laugh, your guffaws getting louder as he gets increasingly embarrassed, screeching at you to stop that fucking noise right now you nook sniffing pile of feculent horse excrement–

Eventually his insults give way to laughter of his own, which he promptly clamps down on, attempting to wrestle his face into a neutral expression. As soon as he reaches a semblance of composure, he straightens and scoops up his book. “I’m going to go check out,” he announces, before stomping off, red still lingering on his neck, cheeks, and the tips of his ears.

Forcing down your own laughter, you spring up and race forward, easily falling into step beside him. He’s pointedly not looking at you. Aww. You sigh.

Still facing forward, you casually slide your hand into his, palm to palm, and squeeze. He jolts briefly and you’re afraid he’ll pull away, but then he squeezes back. The smile is back, easing it’s way onto your face once more, as you lace your fingers together. A glance out of the corner of your eye tells you that Karkat’s face seems to be a mirror image of yours. Happy, thrilled, content, maybe even a little relieved.

The librarian raises an elegant eyebrow at the sight of your twined hands and quirks her lips in a silent question as she scans his book. You just wiggle your eyebrows suggestively in response. She rolls her eyes, prints out the receipt, and hands it to the two of you. “Due back on the sixteenth, Karkat. And Dave, make sure you call your sister. If she hears about it from me, you may not survive the next reunion.” You nod sheepishly as the two of you leave.

Outside you tip your head up and close your eyes, enjoying the brisk evening weather. Idly you swing your clasped hands, marveling at the sudden unravelling of the knot of tension that’s been your companion for so long. “Hey, wanna grab some dinner?”

You can almost hear his smile, points and all, when he replies, “Sure. What do you want?”

“Oh… I don’t know.” You grin suddenly, squeezing his hand. “I guess I feel like something sweet, right now.” You expect him to punch you for the lame joke, but he just chuckles and quickens his pace, pulling you along with him.

Damn, who knew language barriers could actually lead to something so good.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so cheesy Kellog wants to turn me into a cheezy snack cracker.
> 
> Also angsty emotional spill-the-beans Dave is apparently my baby and I have no idea what I'm doing.
> 
> And there are probably tons of mistakes because if I proofread my own fiction too much I start freaking out and then lock it in the depths of my hard drive, never to be seen again. So instead I just publish it before I can chicken out.
> 
> Anyway hope you enjoyed.


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